


Schoolroom Shenanigans

by takethembystorm



Series: Tea Break [20]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 15:37:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8107993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takethembystorm/pseuds/takethembystorm
Summary: Alya finds a boyfriend.





	1. He's My Boyfriend!

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this](http://tides-miraculous.tumblr.com/post/143802419122/can-i-please-request-nino-as-a-little-kid-maybe).

“He’s _my_ boyfriend!” Alya declares to the playground at large.

Alix blinks at her. “Okay,” she says, and returns to chasing Kim around, scooping up fistfuls of sand from her overflowing pockets and hurling them at him. Max doesn’t bother looking up from his book. Ivan glances up from where he and Mylene are playing checkers but then returns his attention to their game.

Alya pouts, sticking out her lower lip, then puffing out her cheeks, then doing both when neither seems to elicit any reaction.

“Come on, Nino,” Alya says, dragging him behind her.

* * *

“He’s my boyfriend!” Alya tells Rose and Juleka when she finds them. Nino stares blankly at them as he half-dangles from her grip.  


“Cool,” Juleka says.

“Aw,” Rose says. Juleka looks at her. “I thought he was cute.”

“Okay.”

Alya pouts at them when no further reaction is forthcoming.

* * *

Alya’s forced to relinquish her grip on Nino when they separate for lunch.

“No one’s gonna like you ‘cause you’re weird,” she hears as she trots back to class. Her eyes narrow. She recognizes that voice.

“An’ you’re gonna be all alone, like, forever,” Chloe continues, “‘cause that’s what happens to weird people.”

“No he isn’t,” Alya declares as she marches up and seizes Nino by a bicep.

Chloe looks at her with blank disdain. “Why?”

“‘cause he’s my boyfriend!” Alya declares proudly.

Chloe rolls her eyes at them and leaves. “Whatever,” she says. “Just don’t get your weird cooties all over the rest of us.”

“Stop it,” Nino says as the rest of the class files in, pulling himself free. “I’m not your boyfriend.” He stuffs his hands into his pockets and shuffles in with a mobile slouch, gaze fixed on his feet.

Alya pouts.  



	2. The Gang's All Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nino makes some friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [this](http://simplylilyyy.tumblr.com/post/143820454588).

When Nino finds it, he’s unsure of who to show it to. He considers the weird girl who’d called him her boyfriend, whatever that meant, and discards the idea. He considers Rose and Juleka, but they’d probably scream and run away. They seem like the kind of people to do that.

Chloe and Sabrina aren’t even a part of his consideration. Alix would probably try to kick it, Kim would, would do _something_ stupid. Max would just ignore him in favor of whatever book he had his nose buried in. Maybe the new kid, Nathanael, but nah. He spends all his time in some corner of the classroom scribbling with crayons and colored pencils, probably freak out.  


Someone makes the decision for him.

“Cool!” A mop of blond hair appears in his peripheral vision as someone flops down on the ground next to him, crossing his arms under his chin. “What is it?”

Nino blinks in surprise and looks left.   


“My name’s Adrien!” Adrien declares. “What’s yours? What’s that? It looks cool. It’s wriggling. Is it supposed to be wriggling?”

A tiny girl in overalls and a ladybug-print shirt walks in front of them and squats on her heels, tilting her head this way and that curiously. “It looks like a tor-toise,” she says with an imperious air a moment later.  


“Cool! Is it yours?” Adrien asks Nino.

Nino blinks as the two of them look at him curiously. “Uh,” he says. “I found it.”

“Oh, okay, then,” Adrien says. “So it’s yours then. Finders keepers.”

“No it isn’t,” the girl chides him.

“Marinette,” Adrien whines.

So the weird-girl-not-so-weird-as-the-one-that-called-you-her-boyfriend is called Marinette. She confirms this a second later.

“Hi,” she says, offering a hand to shake. “My name is Ma-ri-nette. What’s yours?”

Nino looks down at her hand, then up at her earnest, honest face, then down at her hand. Slowly, he takes one of his hands from around the wriggling tortoise--as much as something like a tortoise can wriggle--and shakes her hand.

“‘m Nino,” he mumbles.

“Hi, Nino!” Adrien says. “So that’s what a tortoise is? I read about tortoises once.” His eyes twinkle. Nino shifts away from him a little. Eyes, he was certain, were _not_ supposed to do that. “It could be a _god,”_ he pronounces with grave solemnity.

“O-Oh,” Nino says.

“Is it talking to you in your head?” Adrien wonders. “Hey, everyone, shh!”

They wait and listen.

“I don’t hear anything,” Nino says.

“Aw,” Adrien says.

“Cool tor-toise, though,” Marinette says.

“I think it’s a turtle, actually,” Nino says. “‘m cousin has one in a big aquarium. It looks just like this one.”

The three of them look at the weakly wriggling maybe-turtle.

“Could be why it isn’t talking,” Adrien concedes. “Hey, you wanna play?”

“Adrien!” they hear someone call.

“Aw man,” Adrien says as he gets up. “That’s Nathalie. She works for my parents. I gotta go. I’ll see you guys after lunch!”  


“Bye, Adrien,” Marinette says, going over and giving him a hug. “See you later.”

They watch Adrien as he walks off to greet a severe-looking woman with her dark hair bound up in a neat ponytail, who escorts him to a car.

Marinette turns back to Nino as the car moves off.

“Wanna play?” she asks him.

* * *

Lunch takes a few minutes as they wolf down sandwiches. The rest of the period is spent trying to make flower crowns and occasionally chasing down the maybe-turtle as it wanders around.

Nino watches as Marinette deftly weaves flowers together into a circlet, talking animatedly all the while. He tries to mimic her, but keeps shredding the stems. Eventually he just dumps his failed attempts into his cap and shoves it on his head. Marinette giggles as flowers cascade down his face and weaves him a crown as well.

It’s as he’s heading to his class and she to hers that things go wrong.

Chloe’s mocking laughter hits him before she does. He hits the concrete elbows- and knees-first and his turtle bounces from his grip and lands on the ground with furiously waggling feet in the air.

“You look like a _girl_ ,” she sneers. Nino feels tears well in his eyes as the mockery continues. What had he ever done to her, to have her treat him like this?

“Ew, what’s this?” she says. “Sabrina, pick it up.”

Nino scrambles forwards but is a second too late; Chloe’s red-haired accomplice picks his turtle up and holds it out of his reach as he reaches for it. With Chloe’s encouragement, Sabrina starts running around, just keeping Nino’s turtle out of his reach until he trips over one of his untied shoelaces and falls heavily to the ground.

He can’t stop himself from crying as he sits up, and Chloe and Sabrina laugh harder.

“Give it back!”

Nino blinks in shock as the weird girl steps in front of him, hands balled into tight fists at her side.

“What do _you_ want, Alya?” Chloe says with a hint of bored sneer.

Alya points. “Give it back to him!”  


“Why?”

“‘cause I’ll tell the teacher on you if you don’t!”

“Tattle-tale, tattle-tale~,” Chloe sing-songs at her. “Oh, whatever, this is getting boring anyways.” She takes the turtle from Sabrina and tosses it carelessly in their direction; Alya dives and catches it.

“Here you go,” Alya says as she hands the turtle back to Nino and helps him up. “Are you okay?”

Okay, Nino thinks as she walks with him into class.

Maybe she’s not so weird after all.  



End file.
